"Nothing around those other suns but ashes and dried blood," old Dunbar told the space-wrecked, desperate men. "Only one way to go, where we can float down through the clouds to Paradise. That's straight ahead to the sun with the red rim around it." But Dunbar's eyes were old and uncertain. How could they believe in his choice when every star in this forsaken section of space... more...

THE COMING OF THE FRIARS. Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again!—LordTennyson. When King Richard of England, whom men call the Lion-hearted, was wasting his time at Messina, after his boisterous fashion, in the winter of 1190, he heard of the fame of Abbot Joachim, and sent for that renowned personage, that he might hear from his own lips the words of prophecy and their... more...

CHAPTER I. THE START. In the year eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, on the fifth day of June, the Padgett carriage-horses faced the west, and their mistress gathered the lines into her mitted hands. The moving-wagon was ready in front of the carriage. It was to be driven by Zene, the lame hired man. Zene was taking a last drink from that well at the edge of the garden, which lay so deep that your face... more...

CHAPTER IBEING STAGE DIRECTIONS, AND A CAST OF CHARACTERS Sunshine and prairie grass–well in the foreground. For the background, perhaps a thousand miles away or more than half a decade removed in time, is the American Civil War. In the blue sky a meadow lark’s love song, and in the grass the boom of the prairie chicken’s wings are the only sounds that break the primeval silence, excepting the... more...

If Nature suddenly began to behave differently, what we consider obvious and elementary today might become—unthinkable. In the story THE DESPOILERS in the October 1947 Amazing Stories I raised the question, "Is there anything absolutely beyond human comprehension?" In that story I gave humanity a thousand years to give birth to one man who could comprehend the incomprehensible. The... more...

Chapter I. — BRANNIBOR: HENRY THE FOWLER. The Brandenburg Countries, till they become related to the Hohenzollern Family which now rules there, have no History that has proved memorable to mankind. There has indeed been a good deal written under that title; but there is by no means much known, and of that again there is alarmingly little that is worth knowing or remembering. Pytheas, the Marseilles... more...

CHAPTER I THE COACH OF CONCORD "Well? What can I do for you?" The speaker—a scrubby little man—wheeled in the rickety office chair to regard some one hesitating on his threshold. The tones were not agreeable; the proprietor of the diminutive, run-down establishment, "The St. Cecilia Music Emporium," was not, for certain well defined reasons, in an amiable mood... more...

INTRODUCTORY NOTE When the question was put to Agassiz, 'What do you regard as your greatest work?' he replied: 'I have taught men to observe.' And in the preamble to his will he described himself in three words as 'Louis Agassiz, Teacher.' We have more than one reason to be interested in the form of instruction employed by so eminent a scientist as Agassiz. In the first... more...

CHAPTER ITHE GIFT OF THE SEARCH The Student and Fiona lived in a little gray house on the shores of a gray sea-loch in the Isle of Mist. The Student was a thin man with a stoop to his shoulders, which old Anne MacDermott said came of reading books; but really it was because he had been educated at a place where this is expected of you. Fiona, when she was doing nothing else, used to help Anne to keep... more...

Chapter I. Day glimmered and I went, a gentle breezeRuffling the Leman lake. Rogers. The year was in its fall, according to a poetical expression of our own, and the morning bright, as the fairest and swiftest bark that navigated the Leman lay at the quay of the ancient and historical town of Geneva, ready to depart for the country of Vaud. This vessel was called the Winkelried, in commemoration of... more...